During the fall of 2000, I searched for improved varieties of sugar maple, Acer saccharum. I examined several thousand seedling trees of Acer saccharum growing in rows at a nursery in Boring, Oreg. I found a number of seedling trees that differed from typical seedlings. One tree, which was three years old at the time, particularly caught my attention. My attention was drawn to this tree because it was taller and stronger growing than any other seedling in the field and also displayed unusually bright red fall color. I tagged it and transplanted it during the winter into a testing block for further evaluation. I evaluated this tree every year thereafter and determined that it was superior to typical seedlings in several features.
In order to test this tree under nursery growing conditions, my new tree was test propagated by T-budding onto Acer saccharum rootstock in small plots of 10 trees in 2002, 2003, 2005, and 2006. This asexual propagation in Boring, Oreg. by budding on Acer saccharum rootstock has shown that the characteristics of my new tree are firmly fixed in successive generations. I evaluated each plot of these test trees for three years in the nursery and then discarded all but 15 which I re-planted in 2008 and 2009. Testing, evaluation, and comparison with seedlings of the species as well as with existing commercial varieties of Acer saccharum has convinced me that my new tree has superior growth and appearance characteristics for landscape use.